The grindstones on cylindrical grinding machines, including machines for the grinding of crankshafts, have to be dressed according to requirements, the reason being that this is a condition for achieving the desired grinding result. Moreover, it is necessary for such stones to be provided with a given profile in order to produce a given form on the workpiece.
Hitherto known methods of dressing grindstones include, where manual dressing is involved, a dressing device mounted on the machine which with appropriate feeding can dress the face of the stone, and also a manually pivotable camber-dressing device mounted on the machine for dressing the stone's two roundings at the transition between the face and the sides. The dressing of the stone carried out in this manner does not ensure a completely uniform transition between the two dressing operations. In cases where there is merely the slightest jump between the dressings, during the grinding there will appear one or more notches which, for example on crank pins and journals with high concentrations of stress, can be particularly damaging. Further to this, manual dressing of the stone demands great care and accuracy, takes a long time to carry out and involves expensive machine time.
The dressing can also be carried out by means of a diamond dresser which is shaped for the formation of the profile. However, such a dresser is particularly expensive and, moreover, can be used only for the given profiling, which means that one must have several dressers at disposal in order to meet one's requirements.